Choice of Weapon

by Craig Marten-Zerf

  Chapter 17

  Garrett sat in the dark. He had driven back to Brian’s house on autopilot, bringing with him the DVD discs from the room. When he had arrived he had gone to Brian’s cellar and found a bottle of brandy. Cape brandy, rough and smoky. He had picked up a glass from the kitchen but had not used it. He was drinking straight from the bottle.

  He needed to think. To formulate some sort of plan. But the enormity of what his friend had been involved in swamped his normal cognitive abilities.

  The level in the brandy bottle crept down. And the fiery spirit finally relaxed Garrett enough to think. He sat. He remembered.

  Nineteen eighty-five. Angola. He, Brian and two American ex-rangers, had been hired by Gulf Oil to protect their oil storage installations outside Cabinda. One day on a routine patrol they came across the remains of a single engine civilian aircraft. A pilot, one passenger. They had been dead for many months. There were no overtly visible signs of the plane having taken hits so they assumed that it had crashed due to engine failure or pilot error. Remnants of passports found on the bodies showed the pilot to be South African and the passenger an American. Both had been armed, pistols in shoulder holsters. In a suitcase in the back of the plane they had found something else of interest. Two million dollars. Shrink wrapped in blocks of ten thousand dollars. Two hundred bricks of cash. They had split it four ways. After their contract came to an end Garrett had never seen the Rangers again. They took their share of the money and got out of the war game. He had taken his money and put it in a safe deposit box in a bank in London. And then in a box under the floor in his croft.

  Brian had gone berserk. Over the next few months he had taken leave and blown all of it. Women, casinos, chartered flights, horse races. It is possible to live a multimillion lifestyle on half a million dollars, but, as Brian found out, not for very long. But he had not begrudged his excess. Live fast, die young. Fight on.

  Then Garrett lost touch with the cockney for a few years except for a brief time in Liberia. They were together for a couple of days there until Brian was injured, shot in the thigh and evacuated. And then, different wars, different parts of Africa. The next time that he saw him was in Sierra Leone, as his sergeant.

  A South African mercenary recruitment company had contacted both of them on behalf of president Kabbah who was looking to put together a rapid response team of a dozen or so elite. The best of the best. When the recruitment company had done their research his name and the name of the cockney ex-SAS soldier had come up right at the top.

  Kabbah had been true to his word and they had been issued with more than adequate weapons and transport. The ten others were made up of one ex-Rhodesian fire force soldier, two South African Parabats and seven locals. They were good. Very good.

  At the start the president had taken personal care of them. Deciding for himself when and where they would be deployed and then basking in their inevitable successes. And in the beginning success had been easy to come by. The troops that they fought against, undisciplined and ragged.

  After a while Kabbah had tired of his new toy and let them control their own destiny. Garrett turned the group into a roving reaction unit relying heavily on information from the Kamajors, groups of local tribesmen who fought on the side of the government. As Brian once succinctly put it, they find the shit and we clear it up.

  And there was shit aplenty. Although Garrett had fought for most of his adult life he had never before, or since, come across such sickening violence. Such unbelievable inhumanity to fellow man.

  The rebels fought under loose commandos designated as ‘Fighting Units’ and these units were named according to their favorite ways of killing. Thus, ‘Burn House Unit’ for the unit that used to lock civilians in their huts, alive, before they torched them. ‘Kill Man No Blood’ unit who used to beat their victims to death but took great pride in doing so without spilling a drop of blood. ‘Born Naked Squad’, rapists and sexual deviants.

  And, finally, a whole section of fighting units that were new to the conflict. Garrett and his men, now designated ‘The Warriors’ had not yet come up against them. They were a reaction to the governments new slogan, “The future is in your hands”. In a brutal and sadistic counter-campaign the rebels had formed a number of fighting units designated, ‘Cut Hands Commandos’. Their message was simple; support the government and you have no hands. They began a wholesale campaign. Chopping the hands off innocents, particularly those of little children. These commandos were led by people with nicknames like; Biggie chop hand, Captain two hands and Betty cut hands.

  It was over this period that Manon come crashing into Garrett’s life. Her essential goodness creating such a counterpoint to his current existence, that it seemed to possess him, mind and soul. A security blanket of decency and kindness for his tortured mind to cling to.

  And also the first time he saw the children. Horribly mutilated by the Cut Hands Commandos. Children as young as three years old with both hands chopped off. Sometimes entire arms lopped off at the shoulder. The sight of such terrible atrocities had literally driven Garrett to the very brink of insanity. All that he could think about was finding the people, the animals, who had committed such a monstrous crime against humanity. He had left five men to guard the mission and had gone on hot pursuit of the cut hand Commandos with Brian, two massive South Africans and three of his riflemen…

  …the air was hot and sticky and full of biting midges. Jungle surrounded them, thick and verdant. Bright emerald green. Deadly. Perfect cover for an ambush.

  The two South Africans were walking point. Their lightness of foot belying their massive frames. Kobus, the slightly bigger of the two at six foot five and around three hundred pounds carried a 7.62 FN Mag general-purpose machine gun, his body festooned with extra belts of ammunition. It was a sight that even the hardest of combatants would find terrifying. This, combined with his ragged black beard and badly broken nose had resulted in him being given the nickname, Daisy. An epithet that he accepted with surprisingly good humor.

  The Warriors had been following the spoor of an alleged Cut Hands Commando that they had been told about by a local group of Kamajors. They were traveling North from outside the village of Meyesi towards Makimbolo. The spoor showed twenty plus rebels less than four hours in front of them and the Warriors were pushing hard to catch up. That night was to be a full moon and Garrett had decided that they would attempt to track through the night in order to catch up with the rebels and then, come daybreak, they would attack.

  At around four in the morning Daisy held up a clenched fist. The unit dropped silently to the ground. Garrett and Brian leopard crawled up to the Afrikaner. He held his finger to his lips and then pointed ahead. It took Garrett a few seconds and then the full picture leapt out at him. They had almost walked directly into the middle of the rebels’ camp. A sentry sat against the bole of a tree, his eyes closed, breathing rhythmic. Asleep. Garrett let his eyes rove over the scene. Using his peripheral vision to enhance his night seeing ability. Letting the rod receptors in his eyes take the brunt of the work as opposed to the color only cones. He counted the forms lying in the small clearing. Twenty-one. Daisy nudged him and pointed again. Across the clearing another sentry. This one awake but also sitting against a tree. Twenty-three rebels in all. The three of them slithered back. Away from the encampment.

  Garrett spoke to the men. His voice low. Lips close to ears. Sunrise at five twenty. They would split into two groups. He, Brian and Daisy would circle around and come in from the West. The rest of the group would attack from their current position. No prisoners. Go in hard at first light, Garrett would signal by tossing a grenade into the encampment. Sentries first and then try to kill the rest before they woke up.

  The next hour ground away with infinite slowness. Nerves stretched taut as piano wire.

  The sun. A tendril of red above the horizon. The metallic ping of the safety lever detaching from the M61 grenade followed by the soft thud o
f the half-kilo lump of steel and explosive hitting the jungle floor. Three seconds later the air was rent with an explosion. Garrett shouldered his FN and double tapped the sentry opposite him. The 7.62 rounds punched straight through him and into the tree that he was resting against. On his right Brian was firing into the clearing, controlled double taps. And then Daisy opened up. The FN Mag spewed out death at a cyclic rate of one thousand rounds a minute. He worked the weapon back and forth across the encampment, shiny brass cartridges and steel links from the disintegrating ammunition belt fountained out of the side of the machine gun. Copper jacketed lead hosed out of the front. From the other side of the encampment the other Warriors were also dealing out death as aggressively and efficiently as possible.

  And then silence. A soft ting-ting of the Mag barrel as it cooled down. A low moaning from one of the rebels. Ears ringing. Hearts hammering. Breath coming in short ragged bursts.

  Garrett strode into the clearing.

  ‘Come on Warriors. Check the bodies. If anyone’s alive tell me.’

  He took a pack of cigarettes out of his webbing, put one in his mouth. Zippo. Tried to light it with shaking hands. Couldn’t. Brian leant over and helped, using his thumb to roll the flint. The wick flamed and Garrett lit up.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Garrett walked down the row of bodies. Most of them torn to shreds courtesy of the Mag. Overkill. One moaning. Covered in blood. Still alive. Garrett knelt down to get a closer look. Two hits to the chest. Minutes at most. He put his face close to the rebel.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey’, the rebel grunted in reply.

  ‘You want some water?’

  The man nodded. Garrett unclipped his canteen from his belt, held the man’s head up and trickled some water into his mouth. He tried to swallow. Couldn’t. Choked instead.

  ‘What commando are you?’

  ‘Betty cut hands.’

  ‘Betty?’

  ‘Our leader. Missus Betty.’

  ‘Your leader is a woman?’ Asked Garrett. The rebel nodded painfully. ‘Not very good, was she?’

  The man chuckled. ‘No, she got us killed.’ He laughed again and then, as if someone had flicked a switch, he stopped living.

  ‘Hey, captain.’ Daisy called Garrett. ‘Check this out.’

  Garrett walked over. Lying in front of the Afrikaner was obviously the commando leader. A woman, perhaps in her mid twenties, thick hair tied up with a red scarf. And around her neck, on a plaited leather necklace, the dried hand of a tiny child.

  Daisy shook his head. ‘That’s fucking sick, man. Sick.’

  Garrett pointed his FN at the dead woman’s head, slipped the selector to full auto and pulled the trigger. And that was the first time that he had felt the beast stir within him. A part of him. Dark and vengeful. Unforgiving. Bent on retribution.

  The next few days Garrett pushed his men harder than they had ever been pushed before. He was a man possessed. Two days after they had wiped out the Betty Cut Hands fighting unit the Warriors came across a small group of seven Kamajors. They were following a large cut hands commando of around thirty rebels but had stayed back as they felt that they did not have the necessary firepower to engage. They teamed up with the Warriors, placing themselves under Garrett’s command.

  Once again Garrett used the cover of night. Running hard they leapfrogged ahead of the cut hands and laid an ambush where the trail meandered through an old dried up riverbed. Garrett, Daisy and the Kamajors on one side of the river, the rest of the Warriors on the other. Garrett had rigged a grenade linked to a tripwire across the trail and had told the men to fire only when the grenade exploded. No sooner.

  Just past seven in the morning. The rebels had risen early, broken camp and continued up the trail. They walked together, bunched up in a gaggle. Talking and laughing. Children on a school outing. Off with teacher to maim and dismember.

  A group of three hit the tripwire at the same time. Garrett was lying prone and he felt the thump of detonation in his stomach. Next to him, like an old insane relative, the Mag started yammering. The sound a cross between an ultra fast hammer and paper tearing. Garrett fired into the bunched up rebels, moving from right to left and back. Picking each target and moving on. Some of the rebels had gone to ground and were returning fire, their two to one numerical advantage allowing them to lay down withering sheets of fire. But the Mag played its music of death. And Daisy was an aficionado of the instrument. Long, controlled bursts of accurate fire. The rebel’s AK47’s hit back. The flat retort easily distinguishable from the vicious crack of the Warriors FN rifles. Garrett waited until that finely judged moment when a firefight is about to turn. The pendulum ready to swing either way, and he jumped to his feet.

  ‘Warriors!’

  As one his men charged in, firing from the hip as they ran. The Kamajors followed close behind. Mouths open wide. White teeth. Red tongues. Wide eyes. Elation, fear, anger, pride. All wrapped up in an internal package of white-hot energy that allows a man to run screaming into combat knowing that any step could be his last. Heady and exhilarating. Garrett knew of no better feeling.

  The two groups of Warriors fought towards each other. Dust from the dry riverbed filled the air. Blue-white cordite smoke. Acrid and stinging. One of the Kamajors took a hit to the head, the 123 grain steel jacketed slug striking his skull at a little under 3000 feet per second. His feet flicked out in front of him and he did a perfect back flip. Garrett shot his killer twice in the chest and ran out of ammo. He ejected the magazine and fumbled the reload, dropping his spare in the dust. He went down on one knee to retrieve it and came face to face with a rebel who was busy cramming rounds into an empty magazine. Garrett picked up his FN and smashed the barrel into his opponents face as hard as he could. The steel flash hider slid along his cheek and plunged into the man’s eye with a distinct popping sound as the orb burst. The rebel fell back screaming. Garrett reloaded, shot the man in the head and sprung back to his feet.

  It was over. Bodies were piled in random groups. Lying over each other like a necrophiliac orgy. The iron smell of blood filled the air. Cloying. Sticking in the back of the throat like phlegm. The Kamajors were already looting the bodies. Boots were being tried on for size, wristwatches and personal jewelry disappearing into pockets.

  The Warriors walked amongst the fallen and removed their weapons, casting them to one side, out of reach. Six of the rebels were still alive. Two of them only slightly wounded. The corpses were dragged to one side. The living lined up in front of Garrett. Those that could support themselves were on their knees. Three lay prone. Their wounds too dire to do anything else.

  Garrett picked one, a young man. Twenties or so.

  ‘You. What fighting unit are you?’

  The rebel kept his eyes averted. ‘We are Two Hands Cut Commando.’

  ‘Why Two Hands?’

  ‘Please, Sir. Because we always take both the hands. Never just one.’

  ‘You cut hands off children?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘And women?’

  Another nod.

  ‘Do you keep any of the children’s hands?’

  With shaking fingers the rebel opened his shirt. Around his neck, a copper wire necklace. Hanging from it two tiny wizened dried hands.

  Garrett took a deep shivering breath. The machete made a rasping sound as he drew it from its stiff leather sheath. The oiled blade reflected the sun. And the deep green of the jungle.

  ‘Hold out your right arm.’

  The rebel started weeping. ‘Please, sir. No.’

  ‘Hold out your arm or I will burn your eyes from your head.’

  The man held out his arm. Black from the sun. Thin. Muscles like cord. A diet barely above subsistence level. He looked up at Garrett.

  ‘Mercy. Please, my master. Mercy.’

  ‘What mercy have you ever shown, you cunt?’

  Garrett swung. The hand leapt from th
e end of the man’s arm like a live thing escaping captivity. Blood sprayed out of the severed stump. Dry dust turned red. Scarlet mud. The man sank to the ground clutching at the stump, keening formlessly. But it was not over. Garrett grabbed the left hand. Pulled it above the man’s head. Swung again.

  ‘Two Hands Cut!’ He shouted and held the man’s severed hand in front of him. ‘Both hands you fucking animal. Both hands.’

  The rebels that could move tried to get to their feet but the Warriors clubbed them down. Garrett turned to Daisy.

  ‘Here.’ He held out the machete. ‘All of them.’

  Daisy shook his head. Brian stepped forward.

  ‘Listen, corporal. You will do as the captain says.’

  Again the huge Afrikaner refused.

  Garrett turned to the group of Kamajors and held out the machete to them. One walked over. His face grim. He took the blade.

  ‘We will do it. It is just. These men are less than animals.’

  Garrett turned and walked off into the forest. The Warriors avoided eye contact. None of the rebels lived. Later that day the Warriors were hunting again. Looking for their next battle.

  The next six days were a wash. Endless trudging through forest. Village after village hunting down rumors of a particularly harsh fighting unit that went under the name of Captain Cut Hands. It was alleged by the locals that this particular commando also practiced ritual cannibalism. Fear of them was a tangible thing amongst the people. But by now Garrett’s reputation had also spread and he and the Warriors were treated with a mixture of respect and trepidation. In a land where the removal of hands stood for evil it was hard to reconcile Garrett’s crusade with righteousness. So the villagers stood back and watched. And waited. For this was Africa and patience is a way of life.

  On the seventh day. Light rain. Almost a mist. Another formless track leading to another nameless village. Morale amongst the Warriors was low. Garrett had driven them beyond the call. Rations were low and the constant strain of imminent attack had worn them thin. Daisy was particularly morose. The brutality of the last weeks had shocked the unshakable Afrikaner. He had no qualms about machine-gunning down enemy soldiers but the brutal maiming that Garrett had insisted on did not sit well with him. As a result he had retreated into himself. An island.

  The only person that still treated the captain normally was Brian. His cheeky-chappie sense of humor, his unquenchable enthusiasm and his boundless energy kept Garrett grounded. Human. He owed Brian more than he could quantify.

  And then, muted by the thin rain and the thick jungle, the unmistakable flat retorts of an AK47. Measured single shots a few seconds apart. Not a firefight. An execution. As one the Warriors picked up paced and ran towards the sound.

  They entered the village from the South. Spread out in a V formation. As always, Daisy on point. The raindrops on his ammunition belts sparkled like diamonds, turning the tools of death into costume jewelry.

  The village was a poster for abject poverty. It never ceased to amaze Garrett that, in a climate where even spit would grow; the locals didn’t seem capable of raising even the minimum of subsistence crops. The villagers, perhaps forty of them, were huddled in the clearing in the center. Around them twenty plus members of the rebel cut hands fighting group. On the right hand side of the clearing a large tree stump. Tied to it; two toddlers. Boys. Shirtless. Their wrists had been tightly tourniquet but blood and lymph still oozed from the fresh wounds. Their hands lay on the ground. Tiny. Pathetic. Like crushed insects. And next to them two villagers that had just been executed.

  Garrett opened up first. Walking towards the rebels. Unhurried two shot taps. Aiming so as not to harm any villagers. The rest of the Warriors followed suite. And then Daisy. Short sharp bursts of fire. Each one less than a second long. Fifteen rounds. The cut hands did not even try to fight back. They simply dropped their weapons and knelt down. Still the Warriors had cut down twelve of them in that short time.

  Garrett strode amongst them, his face white with fury. Brian ran forward and cut the toddlers free and, with the help of Jose, the medic, he bound their stumps and administered morphine. The mothers of the mutilated children came forward, sobbing quietly. Curtsying their respect as they laid claim to their offspring.

  The Warriors lined the surviving rebels up. On their knees. Meanwhile the villagers dragged the rebel corpses to one side, stripping them of their clothing and weapons as they did so. Those that were close to death but hadn’t quite crossed over were hurried along as the villagers gave physical expression to their fear. Their inability to fight back. They gathered around the wounded and kicked them to death. Silently. Faces blank. The air full of the meaty sounds of bare feet striking flesh. Over and over and over.

  The village headman approached Garrett. His eyes cast down in respect. He stood in front of the captain waiting for his acknowledgement.

  Garrett nodded at him. ‘Yes, mister.’

  ‘Please, sir. The rest?’

  Garrett raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘The rest what?’

  ‘Please, sir. I am asking that your soldiers please kill the rest of the cut hands.’

  ‘You want them dead?’

  The headman walked over to the line of kneeling rebels and spat on them. ‘They are animals. Violators of children. Eaters of human flesh. This one here,’ he pointed at a young man with a red beret on his head. ‘This is their leader.’ He spat again. The leader looked at him with a smirk on his face. There was no fear. Only smoldering anger.

  Garrett stood still for a while. Thinking. Finally he took a cigarette pack from his webbing. Extricated. Lit up.

  ‘It is time for this to stop,’ he turned to the headman. ‘Get some wood. Start a fire here.’

  He walked over to the cut hands leader and dragged him to the tree stump. Lashed his hands together, looped the rope over the stump and pulled tight, securing the man’s hands to the chopping block. Then he waited while the villagers built a fire. The leader of the rebels started to sweat. The look of sardonic arrogance had been replaced with fear. But still only surface fear, not deep and visceral. The fear of someone who thinks that something may be going wrong but deep down does not really believe it. In this case the rebel could not believe that a white foreigner in charge of government troops would actually violate a prisoner of war. There were rules. He saw no dichotomy in his argument. The fact that he did not adhere to basic human rules and values was because he was superior. A people’s leader. Above the rules.

  When the fire was going strongly Garrett called the headman to him again.

  ‘Do you have a steel spade or shovel.’

  The headman shook his head. ‘We have a steel hoe.’

  ‘Get it.’

  When the headman brought back the hoe Garrett placed the blade in the fire, leaving it until the steel grew cherry red. And then, without warning he spun, drew his machete and struck the cut hands leader’s right wrist. His severed hand lay on the flat surface of tree trunk, fingers curled as if making a final effort to grasp at something. A second strike detached the left hand sending it spinning to the ground. Then he leant over, picked up the hoe and cauterized the wounds with the red-hot steel.

  But it was far from over. Garrett had decided that the cut hand commandos had reached the end. He would no longer allow them to exist. The beast inside him howled and gibbered as he pushed against the boundaries of humanity in his quest for retribution. And then it broke free.

  Garrett kicked the rebel leader in his chest, knocking him onto his back. The machete rose and fell two more times. Then the sizzling steel again. Stemming the flow of blood from the rebel’s severed ankles. He screamed and thrashed around as the agony crashed over him in waves. Blood ran down his cheek where he had bitten through his lip as he convulsed. Garrett dragged the next rebel to the chopping block.

  It took him over half an hour to do all eight rebels. They lay on the bare earth in front of him. Helpless, limbless freaks. Some unconscious, so
me wailing in agony and some mute. Faces gray with pain and shock.

  The Warriors stood still. During the whole half an hour they had not moved, their discipline such that they did not intervene. But their humanity did not allow them to participate. Even though the rebels had done far worse and to many more.

  Garrett beckoned to the headman who came forward on shaking limbs and then knelt before him. The old man could hardly bear to look at Garrett. For the man in front of him was no longer a man. His face, his arms, his uniform were drenched in blood. His eyes, green as the jungle, red rimmed with exhaustion and crackling with barely controlled insanity. He was Popobawa. The forest beast. And even though he had come to save them the beast was known to be a fickle and could turn at any moment so he must be treated with the deepest respect.

  And the beast leant over the headman and spoke to him in the tongue of the human.

  ‘These men that I have punished. They must live. You and your village will care for them. And when their wounds have healed you will drive them away to live in the forest like snakes, crawling on the earth so all will know them for the evil animals that they are. And people will come from all around and piss on them and spit on them and curse them. You will send forth people from the village to tell all what happened here. Tell them and make them understand. If any more children are harmed then I will come for them. Do you understand?’

  And the headman nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes Popobawa, I understand…’

  …Garrett stared at the empty brandy bottle in his hand. They had understood. But now, here, in the real world, not some stinking jungle, once again someone had harmed the children. And Popobawa was going to pay him a visit.

  Garrett woke up. Still on the sofa. Mouth gummy. A head that felt constricted by steel bands. The smell of brandy in his pores.

  Opposite him sat Petrus. Smoking. A wry grin on his face.

  ‘Hey, you look like a rat that drowned in the beer pot.’

  Garrett fumbled for his cigarettes. Tapped the pack. Empty. An imploring look at Petrus who offered from his pack. Garrett accepted. Lit. Deep inhalation.

  ‘How long you been here?’

  ‘Not long. Twenty minutes or so.’

  Garrett pointed at the alarm pad by the door. ‘And that?’

  Petrus laughed. ‘I don’t usually let things like that bother me. So, what’s up? Tell.’

  And Garrett told Petrus everything, pausing only to slot one of the DVD’s into the player in the sitting room. After, Petrus sat silent. And then.

  ‘Okay. So when are we going to kill this fucker?’

  Garrett smiled. A humorless deaths head grimace.

  ‘Soon, my friend. Soon.’